Also, The Blind Side currently in theaters seems to be such a work as described above.

My own work begins with abuse but definitely shows there is hope. This is borne out throughout the rest of the book.

I’m also a Christian but seek to include principles subtly … It’s really for all readers and offers hope where there was none.

And now I’m going to re-read the MS, keeping in mind these points made above. It will help me make it even better.

Thank you all so much.

Lucy, your list is terrific. In addition, it seems to emphasize the hallmark of work written from a Christian world view. Thank you.

I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night while undergoing outpatient surgery–I laughed all the way into the surgical theater and reached for the book when I came out. When I later played it on tape for my family, however, the vulgarities made us turn off the book. Curious, indeed, that you can read over rude language and it hits you altogether differently in the ears.

You’re correct, staying in the protagonist’s head with his Aspbergers gave us enough distance to read through the horrors.

I’ve not seen the movie Life is Beautiful, but I understand it does similar things–including adding the touch of pathos and humor to the death camps.

I’ve been a human rights activist since my teens (which were some time ago), and my historical fiction projects deal with topics like Soviet Gulags, the Chinese occupation of Tibet, and child slavery in 19th century Australia.

In the process of research, I’ve read stories that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I’ve also concluded that tragedy cannot be published simply for its own sake. There is just too much of it. If you wade in it for too long, it will warp your mind.

Still, tragedy is real, just as hope and miracles are real. I’ve put together a few simple guidelines for myself in telling these stories, and I’m sure I’ll add to the list as I go along.

Here they are:

1) There must be hope and there must be meaning.

Not all my protagonists live. In the second novel of my Russian trilogy, two of them are executed in a labor camp. But their lives had meaning, and their deaths are not random. Through them and other characters, hope remains a part of the story.

2) You can’t deal honestly with tragedy unless you recognize that it’s not all-encompassing.

Funny things happened in labor camps, right in the middle of soul-ripping awfulness. Miracles came along. People survived and were released who should never have survived. No matter how dark your palette is, not every spot of paint you’ll use is black. Not if you tell the truth.

3) Avoid the splatter effect, and don’t get into the gory details where implication will do.

There is actually a psychological process by which trauma can be inflicted third-hand. The act of listening to someone else tell about a tragedy they’ve witnessed, or reading someone’s account of one, can quite literally harm the person receiving the information.

Fortunately, implication is a powerful tool when properly used. And it should be used, since harrowing the reader until they put down your book is counterproductive, not to mention unnecessary.

4) Any character suffering a tragedy must be treated with dignity by the author.

Characters cannot be singled out for random acts of authorial violence. They can’t die just because you need them to die. Their suffering has to be necessary to the story, and they must be developed, three-dimensional people.

5) Did I mention there must be hope?

Actually, there has to be a lot of it.

There are many heart-breaking stories in this world. And I wouldn’t want to discredit anyone that has faced the many terrible experiences you mentioned (or others) but I often think that the force of these stories is most often not in the tragic details but in the hope/courage/purpose they find in the face of or in spite of such difficult times.

When they can share that, their story moves from tragedy to triumph. Life is gritty and even fiction needs to acknowledge that but I always look for resilience or hope or determination in characters, even while the grit grinds. Those are the stories I will read. Just like I know Fred & Ginger will dance their way out of their dilemma, any story that has “shows the way out” offers hope, relief and hopefully an awareness of how to be sensitive to someone that might have faced the same things – all within the context of engaging writing, and even without a happy ending. Otherwise, there is little to distinguish it from a newspaper article or a police report.

And great observation about Anne Frank, Lynn. Raw emotion, in her case, brought the truth so close to readers. As Lorna said, great characters we care about take us through difficult stories in a growing way. I’ve just read Sara Zarr’s novels about lonely young adults and feel I can understand my own teenager better.